EGO--OUR BIGGEST ENEMY PART 2

The ego is present in all of us. It serves the function to maintian our individual identity. For most of us, we are our ego. By the time we are adults, we are completely and inextricably identified and tied up with our ego mind, and cannot imagine that we could be anything else. And the ego functions in very subtle ways, which are impossible for us to understand, unless one is alert, aware and is wishing to awaken to the reality of human existence.

The purpose of the ego is self preservation. While we associate the ego with pride, arrogance, superiority, competitiveness, one upmanship, etc, the ego also functions in many people in ways that we would never dream or imagine. People who are overly humble, overly giving, people who consider themselves as victims, as failures, as useless individuals, or as martyrs, are also all in the grip of the ego. Ego is about identifying with any thought form, irrespective of whether it is a good form or a bad form. It is better for the ego to exist as an image--any image---rather than not to exist. Hence,many people take to crime or bad habits, because it gives them an image, an identity, any identity. Some of the egos will come disguised in the non traditional form, as people who fall all over themselves to please others, people who take on more suffering, people who tolerate and accept anything and everything without a whimper etc. Such egos are more difficult to identify and eliminate.

The process recognising the ego, what is called awakening actually means only one thing-----seperating awareness from thought. As of now, our awareness, our being, our true self is completely mixed with our thinking. We are our thoughts. But what we don't realise is that, in reality, we are not our thoughts, but are the backgroud screen, the matrix on which thoughts come and go. That matrix is pure awarensss. If we could remain as pure awareness, we would see thought forms arising and disappearing on this screen. But the screen does not know it is the screen. The screen has identified itself with the cinema, with the movie that is running on the screen. And since movies of thoughts are running twenty four hours a day, 365 days a year, the screen does not get a breather, even a moment when there are no movies, to realise "Hello, where is the movie? And if there is no movie running, who am I? How come I am still able to feel and see, even when the projector is off, even when the audience is not there, even when the lights have come on, in the auditorium? If we can come to that stage, that is the stage of awareness where we realise that the movie of thoughts in our brain is not us.

The ego is not easy to identify, for it is fiercely self protective. Any suggestion to the ego that it is the root cause of all our problems is met with stiff resistance and arguments. One of the chief arguments the ego employs when it is stimulated is"This does not apply to me". So, if someone tells you that all your problems are because of your ego, that you are arrogant, you are proud, you are insensitive, the first thing the ego does is to argue against this, saying that these qualities are bad, of course, but they don't apply to me. I know of many other persons who have these qualities, but not me." The ego is a bundle of thoughts and can combine and re-combine a million thoughts to present all sorts of defensive arguments. It is almost like a game which we cannot win. That is why, although the ego is known to practically everyone, one in a million, like a Buddha, a Mahavira, or a Jesus, is able to get rid of it and live without it.